OK. President Obama has proclaimed that 4.5 million illegal immigrants will get amnesty.
So, what now?
Well, probably very little will happen before a new President is elected in 2016 with the potential of nullifying Obama's action with his/her own executive order. This is because our immigrant processing is already behind by at least 2 years.
In fact, back in July, 40,000 immigrants filed a federal lawsuit because they had been waiting for up to 2 years simply to get interviewed so that the processing of their asylum requests could even begin. If our immigration service doesn't have enough staff to start processing 40,000 requests, how can they handle 100 times that amount and, fulfill the daunting task of verifying their dates of entry along with verifying that their children are U.S. born? In addition, this must be done with people who, in most cases, speak little or no English. A fact that only slows things down even further because an interpreter or bilingual agent will be needed to facilitate the process.
Essentially, Obama's amnesty proclamation is in name only and impractical to implement without any substantial increases in both budget and staffing.
But, the President doesn't really care that these people won't get processed.
All that he cares about is the pro-Hispanic and pro-Latino politics of his action. Politics which are intended to enhance the Democrats standing among this minority group, and the politics of trying to show Republicans as obstructionists because of any attempts they may make to reverse the order. It is also quite possible that the timing of this has to do with the fact that January is likely to kickoff two years of announced campaigning for the presidency, and President Obama is most likely hoping that the Republican candidates will all denounce his amnesty order and therefore, inflame Latinos against them and any others in their party. However, this action may have done the opposite. A recent poll shows that 37% of Latinos, and nearly half of all Americans disapprove of his order on immigration.
Reference:
Asylum-seeking immigrants file class-action suit against federal government over interview backlog: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/asylum-seeking-immigrants-sue-feds-backlog-article-1.1854548
A new NBC poll shows Latinos do not overwhelmingly support President Obama's decision to thwart Congress on amnesty through executive action: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/11/19/poll-not-all-latinos-approve-of-obamas-executive-amnesty-n1921128
Showing posts with label backlog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label backlog. Show all posts
Monday, November 24, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
The VA Scandal Exposes A Common Government Problem: Bad Management
I think most knowledgeable people on Capitol Hill agree that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has had a backlog of problems for years; if not decades. So, the full burden of the problem should not be leveled just against the current President.
What makes the current scandal so egregious, however, is the fact that the backlog problems were being fictitiously cleared up by creating two sets of books. One set, the real-but-pared-down waiting list of patients, was the one used to roll the statistics upwards to VA management to show that the backlog situation was being well controlled. Another set was kept secretly and it contained the names of veterans who, for whatever reasons, were intentionally excluded from the official waiting list; and, these people just sat in limbo until some died. Let me repeat: people died. For that, Obama and his VA chief, Eric Shinseki, must take responsibility.
It seems like, whenever there is a scandal associated with government, the person at the top of the agency or department involved, was put there solely on the basis of political patronage. With all the known problems associated with the VA, Obama should have appointed someone who had a track record as a problem solver. Perhaps, some corporate executive that had turned a failing corporation around. Even a current or former hospital adminstrator would have been a better pick. At least, then, the person running the VA would have some experience with how hospitals should be run.
Instead, Obama put Eric Shinseki in charge. And, why? He was the first high ranking military person to speak out against George Bush's intent to invade Iraq. Thus, as a darling of the left, the President desperately had to find a job for him in his new cabinet; and, it didn't matter if he really knew anything about the job.
The same could be said about Kathleen Sibelius and the failed roll out of ObamaCare and its website. It just seemed like Obama was hell bent on putting her in some job; any job. First, she was rumored to be on the short list to be picked as his running mate. Then, after he won, she was considered to be in the front runner for Secretary of Commerce. Only, after Tom Daschle was forced to decline the HHS slot (due to another scandal) did Sibelius get the job. How's that for always being second best?
Also, there's Hillary Clinton when, as head of the State Department, her incompetence lead to the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three others at Benghazi. In 4 years as Secretary of State, she has nearly zero accomplishments to speak of. She was only thrown that huge bone of a job because she lost the presidential primary to Barack Obama.
I just wish that the practice of political patronage and bad management would end. The U.S. government is too large and too complex to have the "cabin boy" at the helm of such critical Departments like the VA. Political payback is a so ingrained in our political system that I don't see it ever ending unless the people "get mad as hell" instead of getting a feigned "mad as hell" from the very President who put Shinseki in charge and who, obviously, has yet to roll a single head over the scandal.
References:
Dec. 2008: Veterans Resource Network: Eric Shinseki (unqualified); Obama's Pick For VA Secretary: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/raybdavisjr/conversations/messages/1273
Wikipedia: Kathleen Sibelius: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Sebelius
Report: State Dept Ignored Hundreds of Warnings of Benghazi Attack: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/01/16/State-Department-Ignored-Hundreds-of-Warnings-of-Benghazi-Attack
What makes the current scandal so egregious, however, is the fact that the backlog problems were being fictitiously cleared up by creating two sets of books. One set, the real-but-pared-down waiting list of patients, was the one used to roll the statistics upwards to VA management to show that the backlog situation was being well controlled. Another set was kept secretly and it contained the names of veterans who, for whatever reasons, were intentionally excluded from the official waiting list; and, these people just sat in limbo until some died. Let me repeat: people died. For that, Obama and his VA chief, Eric Shinseki, must take responsibility.
It seems like, whenever there is a scandal associated with government, the person at the top of the agency or department involved, was put there solely on the basis of political patronage. With all the known problems associated with the VA, Obama should have appointed someone who had a track record as a problem solver. Perhaps, some corporate executive that had turned a failing corporation around. Even a current or former hospital adminstrator would have been a better pick. At least, then, the person running the VA would have some experience with how hospitals should be run.
Instead, Obama put Eric Shinseki in charge. And, why? He was the first high ranking military person to speak out against George Bush's intent to invade Iraq. Thus, as a darling of the left, the President desperately had to find a job for him in his new cabinet; and, it didn't matter if he really knew anything about the job.
The same could be said about Kathleen Sibelius and the failed roll out of ObamaCare and its website. It just seemed like Obama was hell bent on putting her in some job; any job. First, she was rumored to be on the short list to be picked as his running mate. Then, after he won, she was considered to be in the front runner for Secretary of Commerce. Only, after Tom Daschle was forced to decline the HHS slot (due to another scandal) did Sibelius get the job. How's that for always being second best?
Also, there's Hillary Clinton when, as head of the State Department, her incompetence lead to the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three others at Benghazi. In 4 years as Secretary of State, she has nearly zero accomplishments to speak of. She was only thrown that huge bone of a job because she lost the presidential primary to Barack Obama.
I just wish that the practice of political patronage and bad management would end. The U.S. government is too large and too complex to have the "cabin boy" at the helm of such critical Departments like the VA. Political payback is a so ingrained in our political system that I don't see it ever ending unless the people "get mad as hell" instead of getting a feigned "mad as hell" from the very President who put Shinseki in charge and who, obviously, has yet to roll a single head over the scandal.
References:
Dec. 2008: Veterans Resource Network: Eric Shinseki (unqualified); Obama's Pick For VA Secretary: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/raybdavisjr/conversations/messages/1273
Wikipedia: Kathleen Sibelius: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Sebelius
Report: State Dept Ignored Hundreds of Warnings of Benghazi Attack: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/01/16/State-Department-Ignored-Hundreds-of-Warnings-of-Benghazi-Attack
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